FINAL REPORT Media Law to unesco july1.pdf - AIBD

Summing up the first panel discussion, Dr Iyer said that it provided
“a lot of food for thought”. He gave his opinion to Gopal
Sreenevasan’s explanations, especially referring to the lack of an
“efficient system of enforcement” the lawyer had brought up, which
might, in fact, result in a “denial of justice”. He cited a defamation
case involving US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and the
former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai. The suit was eventually
filed shortly before Desai passed away. Dr Iyer then invited
participate to further comment and ask questions.
Malaysian Jaspal Kaur raised the enforcement issue as well. She
referred to the difficulties, if providers such as you tube are not
willing to take down offensive material. Sreenevasan shared this
view and said that it was indeed difficult to persuade US providers
to take something offline, even “with a recognized judgment” such
as a court order. Kaur also stressed the “need for a moderating
body” in relation to content, since she observed not enough debate
between government and bloggers.
Maintaining that liability was handled very differently in various
countries, Jacob van Kokswijk also opted for an independent
committee or court and an agreement between countries “about
what is allowed and what not”. Dr Iyer, however, said that “we can’t
have universal agreement in terms of content”, as long as
sovereignty was an issue. In the end, one had to rely on national
jurisdiction, he summarized.
Once more, Steve Buckley brought up the freedom of expression
perspective in stressing that he considered any content regulation
as worrying, especially in the context of diverse approaches on
internet regulation and numerous attempts of internet censorship.
Gopal Sreenevasan shared his concerns, especially with regard to
restrictive legislation apart from defamation laws. He specifically
referred to the Malaysian blogger case and the damaging effects of
the Sedition Act.
Robert Beveridge took up Kokswijk’s argument of the Internet as a
tool that is empowering the user and challenged this as a “very
technological, utopian view of the world”. He asked what effect
citizen journalism had on the standards of quality and integrity of
information as set by established news sources such as the BBC. He
argued that the empowerment could easily turn out to be a
“disempowerment”. In reply, Kokswijk put forward the argument of
the politically mature user, who is capable to make independent
judgments on the quality of information precisely because he is
media literate. He also asked: “Why should we accept that only
the BBC has the best news?” Gopal Sreenevasan said that the
20